Underwater vehicles are often used to carry out tasks through interaction with deployed equipment. Underwater vehicles may be remotely operated, often from the surface, by means of a wired communications link. This class of vehicle is termed a “Remotely Operated Vehicle” or ROV. Alternatively a vehicle may follow a pre-determined mission controlled by means of on board sensors and this type of vehicle is often classed as an “Autonomous Underwater Vehicle” AUV. A third class of underwater vehicle may be manned and under the local manual operator control.
To facilitate underwater interaction with deployed equipment existing equipment uses a video camera located on the vehicle that relays moving video to a ROV operator or provides guidance to an AUV through use of computer vision techniques. FIG. 1 shows a conventional underwater vehicle docking arrangement. Remotely operated vehicle 10 is equipped with a forward looking video camera 11 that relays images to the control station through wired communications link 12. The vehicle moves in the direction indicated by arrow 13 towards docking loop 14 attached to remotely deployed equipment 15. On board camera 11 gives a useful guiding image for port, starboard and elevation positioning but not closing range and does not provide a representation of the vehicle it is mounted to.